Battle Looming: Calendar Year Kick Off Vs. European Tour Playoffs!
/The ResetCup's resets may come back to haunt the PGA Tour when it goes to the "calendar year" schedule in 2013 as the possible new European Tour membership rules reported this week may create dual-membership players who want to soak up the late season money in Europe.
According to multiple sources the Turkish Open, BMW Masters and WGC-HSBC Champions will serve as a run-up to the DP World Tour Championship, the European Tour’s year-long finale. Replace the phrase “run-up” with “playoff” and “Dubai” for “Atlanta” and one sees where this is going. All that’s missing is a FedEx Cup logo and an endless parade of points projections.
The Tour’s move to a split-calendar schedule, combined with the rumored “run-up” events to the Dubai finale, could, in theory, change that dynamic and put the Tour and events like the Frys.com Open, which is slated to kick off the 2013-14 season next fall, in a bind.
What if push suddenly became shove, and the Tour was dealt a pair of globetrotting superstars in Woods and Rory McIlroy, who is already a European Tour member, with divergent agendas?
What if quid pro quos, like this week’s agreement with the “Turkish Eight,” became less accepted and more acrimonious? How far would the Tour go to protect its sponsors and its brand?
